Mr. & Mrs. Edward Crowell of 19 Factory Street
(now known as 19 Church Terrace),
Belleville, last night received a telegram from the War Department that
their son, Private Edward Crowell Jr., had died of wounds in Brest,
August 4, 1919. The soldier had been wounded in action, but was believed to
have fully recovered.

He was a member of the Fifty-ninth Infantry and had
been in France two years.

Private Crowell was wounded on Nov. 4, but took part
in the victory parades in both London and Paris. He was twenty-six years
old, was born in Belleville and was a member of the Belleville
Democratic Club and St. Peter's Catholic Club.

Besides his parents he is survived by two brothers,
Martin, who is in the Navy, and James of Belleville; and two sisters,
Mrs. James Lockwood of Haskell and Mrs. George Machete of Forest Hill.

-- Undated newspaper clipping.

Belleville Pays Tribute To War
Heroes

Edward Crowell Jr. and Michael
Flynn Jr. return to Belleville

Belleville paid final tribute to two of its war
heroes yesterday at the joint military funerals of Private Edward Joseph
Crowell, Jr. son of Mr. and Mrs. Edward J. Crowell, 19 Factory Street,
and Private Michael A. Flynn, Jr., son of Police Chief Flynn.

Throngs lined Washington Avenue as the cortege
proceeded from St. Peter's Catholic Church to St. Peter's Cemetery. The
bodies were borne on gun caissons. The photo shows the body of Private
Flynn in the foreground, as the procession was passing the Town Hall.

Chums in boyhood, comrades in enlisting in the army,
these two youths who made the supreme sacrifice in accidents far from
the battle fronts after participating in some of the fiercest
engagements of the war, went together to their graves, which lie side by
side.

To honor these heroes, both of whom had been
decorated for valorous conduct in fighting, the American Legion Post and
the George Younginger and Abraham Lincoln Posts, Veterans of Foreign
Wars, united yesterday to form the escort for the procession.

- Newark Star-Eagle

Edward Joseph Crowell, Jr. was born on March 9, 1894,
in Belleville, N.J. He was baptized on March 25, 1894 in St.
Peter's Church in Belleville.

As a boy growing up, Edward had a friend,
Michael
Flynn, Jr., and as best friends go, these two boys were inseparable.

Then in 1916, every parent's nightmare was realized
in the wake of World War I. Yet to young men like Edward and Michael, it
was a time of honor and duty.

Edward enlisted in the Army on June 17, 1917 and was
sent to Fort Slocum, N.Y. Eddie wanted his childhood friend to
enlist with him, but Mikey was rejected because of his teeth. Flynn
saved his money to have his teeth fixed and later reapplied and was
accepted into the Army.

Later Edward was assigned to a training camp at
Syracuse, N.Y. From here he was sent overseas.

While in Europe, the
two friends were reunited and had a picture taken together with a John
Grant of Boston who was Flynn's bunk mate. Pvt. Edward J. Crowell was a
member of the 59th Infantry.

Crowell's grandnephew, Ed Morrows recalls his
grandmother and Edward's sister, Catherine Machette, saying that her
brother had the nickname of "Whitey". When I asked why was this his
nickname, she said that the war had turned his hair white.

According to accounts, both tragically died after the
war was over but before returning home. Eddie was in a bar the night
before he was to sail home to America.

Another soldier was drunk and said some nasty remarks
about Eddie's mother. A fight ensued and Eddie was stabbed in the
temple. He died the next day, on August 4, 1919, as the ship he was to
be on sailed from the harbor.

Michael Flynn was said to have been riding on a train
in a boxcar with other soldiers. They were horsing around when Michael
fell off and under the train and was killed instantly.

Throughout their lives they were inseparable and now
both were honored in a joint funeral in Belleville. They were buried
side by side in St. Peter's Cemetery.